


Forget Not

by Snake (Fatality145)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, M/M, TW: suicidal thoughts, mShenko, post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:50:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fatality145/pseuds/Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post ME3 - Shepard got out alive, Kaidan didn't.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>'Even though you might as well be dead, you can still feel survivour's guilt.'</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Not

**Author's Note:**

> [Ne Obliviscaris - Forget Not](http://soundcloud.com/fatality145/forget-not-ne-obliviscaris)
> 
>  
> 
> porn week more like snake can't control their angst mshenko feels for more than a few days help i creyed too many times writing this

He didn’t sleep well, anymore, if he had ever, dark eyelids barely closed over bloodshot eyes, dry lips parted over whiskey-stained teeth, the molars ground down slightly, soft mouth turned hard in a weathered face, stark lines in scarred skin. They were smoothed, for the moment, that brief time just as he would pass out before the demons of his own design would come, fiery tongues flaring at his flesh, razor sharp fangs and claws ripping him apart, one beaten chunk of humanity at a time. 

 

                Armour would weigh down on his shoulders, the muscles taut and strained beneath the insinuations that were so much more than just tempered, warped metal plates. Tungsten slug indents ran deeper than the surface, some place beneath, some place broken, despite how much tentative care could be given. Glass could be put back together, even though he was more like melted and reset iron, harder than it was previously, but it would always have missing slivers, cracks in the big picture exposing weakness.

 

                Knees curled up to his chest, the bolts and screws that held him together going stiff in his momentary stasis, head half-ducked beneath the covers. It’d start slow, a twitch, a sound, a sudden inhale as, in his head, strong hands would close around his throat, thumbs pressing into his trachea, choking him, the nails sinking through his thin skin. He’d heat up from the inside out as the blood would paint his chest in thick, black torrents, though externally it would be like ice, cold beads of sweat beginning to form upon the nape of his neck, down the curved slant of his spine.

 

                It didn’t always get that far, sometimes, he would just die right there, but other times he persevered, whether for the better or the worst, he couldn’t say. A gauntleted fist slashing forward, whatever was holding him fading into ebony plumes, meshing with the dark, endless woods that were like his tomb. He could still breathe through the punctures having ripped his throat apart, holding the front, liquid seeping between his fingers.

 

                Then the voices would come, then the visions would show behind his eyes, the faces, sunken, dead features still recognizable, burnt to his mind. They were different than they had been, and he had himself to blame for that. They used to be seraphim, for him, as much of a wake-up call as they were dredging, whispering into his ear, holding his cheek, smiling warmly against him. They reminded him of what he had lost, what he had to redeem and fight for. But now they were just constant yells, bleeding through his ears, reminding him not of what he had accomplished, what he had been through, but rather of what he had failed, each of the banes engraved into his name, yanking the wings from his shoulders, sewing his lips so he couldn’t respond.

 

                By no means was he religious, but he felt himself being dragged down, rusted nails pinning through torn muscle, making his feet tenfold heavier beneath his weight, death raking down his back. The voices would congregate, the shadowy figures shifting in an out of sight, blistering his sight and forcing him down to his knees. He tried to part his lips to say something, anything. He wouldn’t tell them to go, not in a million eons, a million cycles. This was what he got, after all, everything that he deserved. He just wanted to tell them he was _sorry_ , the barb wires splitting his mouth and keeping him silent.

 

                They pulled at his armour, shedding his second skin, scathing and scratching the organic beneath as they left him bare. He would shake, all the heat gone, changed to a frost as their touch and kiss turned his skin to stone, the broken bones setting in place, brambles biting their way up to his neck, his hunched shoulder blades. He reached out, trying to grab a part of the ground not yet covered by the black abyss, each portion of his body perforated and open, weeping, eyes wide, frantic.

 

                The barbs slit his skin, a rough bark passing from his dry throat, the wires snapping with loud metallic twinges as his nails left lines in the gritty dirt. His jaws opened wide, yelling, shouting, the sound bloodcurdling. He’d never screamed like that in his life, it was always in his head, because never before had he faced something so daunting. Watching people die in front of him was one thing, but seeing their faces, twisted in rage, sanguine flames engorging their bodies, was an entirely different thing all together.

 

                The shade enveloped him, making their way down his throat, snuffing out his voice better than the sutures had, melting into his lungs and hanging like cobwebs that he couldn’t cough out no matter how hard he tried, spatters of black coming out over the ground. Blood sank down the corners of his eyes, mixing with the cruor smeared over his mouth and lips, blearing his already blurred vision further.

 

                He heard a sickening, snarled laugh in his ear. They weren’t the ghosts of dead’s past, but his own demons having stolen the faces to taunt him, entirely self-inflicted. Hands covered his mouth, his eyes, before engulfing him completely, a chronic sensory deprivation settling over him. The torment felt as though it lasted years, centuries, his body, barely with a lick of life left in it, on the cold ground, marred and stained, without even the voices to comfort him.

 

                Bare sensations touched over his spine, bringing warmth with them, not the blistering kind, the heat soothing into his muscles, each swipe over his wounds healing them up, the skin meshing back together.

 

                This was when he would shake roughly in the real world. He knew it was coming, and it was no better, if not worse, than the daggers piercing his body. The celestial hands would help him back to his feet against his will, tender, gentle, further fixing the slices in his flesh, bringing colour back to it, cleaning the dirt off of him. He’d squeeze his eyes shut, trying to force it away, the presence lingering despite that.

 

                The cold of the gashes in his mouth were swept away by another pair of lips on his own, and it would break his weak façade every single time, make him sputter out a gross sob, brow furrowing harshly, the shuddering sounds spitting past his clenched teeth. The careful hands held his cheeks, held his forehead to another.

 

                ‘ _You can’t save everyone, Shepard. It’s alright. Wake up, I’ll still love you. It’s okay._ ’ It would whisper, the same thing each time, and when he would finally open his eyes to answer he would open them to his bare ceiling.

 

                It wasn’t okay, it never would be. His subconscious was a fickle and cruel thing, repetitive, too, as if only to hurt him more. This was what he deserved and he would take it with open, shattered arms and a grit jaw.

 

                Slowly, he unfolded himself from his curled up position, cramps setting into the muscle and twice-over reconstructed bone. There was no sound apart from his own and the scant noise of wind lashing against his apartment, completely empty. Rolling onto his side, he didn’t bother feeling over the space next to him, knowing too well that it would be empty, cold, pressing his cheek into the worn pillow, the material slightly damp with his sweat.

 

                The scars that had been torn open hadn’t healed, even a little, staying as ugly, amber tears  along his rigid jawline, parting the stubble he didn’t bother to shave away. His tired eyes squeezed shut for a moment before opening again, staring absently at his bedside table, the lamp with a bulb that not once had been turned on.

 

                Even with the covers over him, he still felt cold, sliding one arm up and out from under the covers to the table. Shepard didn’t have to pat around, he knew exactly what he was looking for, his fingers curling around a chain, the smooth metal brushing over his knuckles and lingering a moment before pulling his arm back to himself.

 

                He half-buried under the covers again, the only light being the straining moon shine which filtered through his thin, drawn curtains, reflecting off the dull blue of his eyes.

 

                For the millionth time, he had to guess, he ran the pad of his thumb over the letters pressed into the plates of two dog tags, not his own, the Alliance symbol, the stats, and, finally, the initials. The _K_ and _A_ under his touch was basically the last thing he had left. War, even before the final push, had taken too much from him, had taken the time where he could have made that different, could have had more to remember with than a pair of given tags and a myriad of memories that drowned him as much as they helped.     

 

                Ducking his head, he deliberately placed the necklace over and down around his neck, pressing the plates to his bare chest, the muscles remaining still despite the chill of the metal. He blinked slowly into the nothingness of his apartment, his gradual breaths shifting the tags and the covers.

 

                This place wasn’t a home. It was a self-subjected cage. So much for seeing English Bay.

 

                The next breath he took in shook a little, prickling in his lungs and the corners of his eyes. He wouldn’t be getting back to sleep, that night. It was the same routine he’d had since a few weeks after he came out of comatose. He could still remember the bile that rose in his throat after he’d been given the news, the uncontrollable shuddering, face in his palms, jaws so tight they threatened to crack. He was still weak, when he was told, so much so that he had to be sedated back into sleep.

 

                ‘ _You can’t save everyone, Shepard_.’

 

                Shepard couldn’t even save himself, the thought bursting a low, disgusting laugh from him as he pulled the covers away and swung his creaky legs over the side of the bed. He swiped a few other things from the bedside table before bending over and grabbing a shirt, shuffling his way out of the bedroom. Each of the walls were bare, white paint, the corners holding their deep shadows. There was nothing in them, though, the only threat being what was in his head.

 

                ‘ _I can help you fix this place up, make it nice, if you wish, John_.’ Liara had once told him, small, tight smile on her lips, dashed hope in her expression.

 

                He’d spoken two words to her, declining the offer, watching the smile falter, a crack in the corner, before she left. Shepard didn’t have the drive or feel to butter things over. He was raw, down to the nerve endings. Languidly, he pulled his shirt up and over his head, the material thin, black, and simple.

 

                Knowing his way through the dark, only literally, Shepard didn’t have to turn on any more lights before he got to the kitchen, the place almost as empty as the rest of his apartment, save for some rubbish, rotting fruit in a ceramic bowl that someone had brought over. He flinched from the light as he flicked the switch, the single down-light, which, in itself, wasn’t that bright at all. Clenching his eyes shut, he slowly opened them to adjust, pupils going needle thin.

 

                Shepard placed the pack of smokes down before he dragged over a chair to the kitchen counter, the seat worn in from his own use, planting himself down. He propped an elbow up on the bench, rubbing his eyes with one hand and sliding an ashtray and a particular, heavy bottle and glass closer to himself.

 

                He was past the point of caring about it anymore as the dusky coloured liquor poured out from the neck of the bottle into the glass, the thick scent quickly filling the air, giving him that fleeting sense of security that his entire form seemed to silently bay for. He didn’t have any more footholds, no ledges to hold onto as the ground would fall away beneath him, only having his brittle bones to land upon.

 

                The burning liquid washed down the back of his throat, groaning lowly, taking out a cigarette and bringing it to his lips, the sound of the lighter’s metal wheel echoing through the open room as he lit the stick up. Smoke curled in his lungs, taking a deep breath in and holding it until it began to hurt and slowly exhaling, the grey plumes wafting past his lips and upward.

 

                His bare feet coupled by the lowest rung of the chair, ghost of a cramp working its way up his leg. It couldn’t barely have been 4am, and he didn’t look over his shoulder to check. Not like it really mattered. Time rarely had a concept, anymore. He guessed, if he had to pick, being awake with his thoughts was better than being asleep with them, even if they were no less controllable either way.

 

                A smile of regret and jaundice that he couldn’t bite back, wouldn’t bite back, curved his lips, twitching in the corners, deepening the age-lines in his face, the sullen skin stretched over his cheek bones, an open hand pressed to his brow. He took another slow breath in before throwing back the rest of the whiskey in the glass, a shudder wracking down from his shoulders to his spine.

 

                Pathetic.

 

                The back of his fingers pushed the empty glass away, other hand tapping the ash off his smoke and resting it in the ashtray before moving to the tags beneath his shirt. Pulling them out, the skin beneath the material, where the metal scathed, rose with harsh flecks of gooseflesh. Shepard held the small plates in his palm, staring down at them, licking the excess whiskey off his lips.

 

                Maybe to the enemy, all that you were was what was stamped onto them, a number, a name, a status. But there was so much more to _these_ tags, and just the thought of it was burning in Shepard’s hand, making them feel heavier than they were. They were all he had, so he had to make the most of them, his thumb covering the lettering before the rest of his fingers curled around.

 

                “ _Damn it, Major_ …”   

 

                His stomach tensed inward, breath suddenly breaking its calm rhythm. The tendons in his hand stuck out, gripping the tags harder in a futile effort that they might just go away. He couldn’t get rid of them. He’d tried, but he always got them back. He couldn’t keep away. It was as though they had a force of their own, pulling him back no matter how hard he tried to separate himself. Two _stupid fucking tags_ , he thought.

 

                He was naïve to ever think that he might get over it, the thought only ever crossing his mind once or twice, when the smell and taste of alcohol was heavy on his tongue.

 

                Even though you might as well be dead, you can still feel survivour’s guilt. Or something much worse that runs much deeper.

 

                Shepard was living in a world he’d created, one that he let live, and he didn’t even want it. What was the point of it if he wasn’t with the one person he wanted to make it for the most? He tried to laugh at how ironic it was, the sound bubbling out half as a choked sob. The man with a death wish, destined to die right from the beginning, with so many targets on his back, had come out alive. It was only those around him that had died, and it was his fault, all his burden to bear.

 

                In a sudden, overcoming flare, he yanked the tags down, breaking the chain against the nape of his neck and chucking the plates across the room, not watching where they landed with a deft sound. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, stifling the tears stinging the corners, his choppy breath was soon going to leave him more lightheaded than he already was.

 

                His shoulders shook, curled in. He was so much smaller once he was shed of his steel skin, the thing that had saved his life so many times. Smaller, and weaker, fragile, less like iron and more like glass. What was he, if not the armour? The N7 symbol engraved into the metal? Nothing more than an average person, with too much on his plate, too many spider webs hanging over everything that he was.

 

                Linking his fingers together tightly, pressing the outside of his fist to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, the amber interface of his Omnitool began to glow over his arm, a reminder of the messages left on it, notifying him. He didn’t bother checking them, letting the mail pile up. They were things he didn’t want to read or hear, congratulations and thanks and the like.

 

                The legs of the chair screeched against the tile as he slumped forward, crossing his arms over his head, his fingers subconsciously, blindly, acting on the controls of the Omnitool. There was only one thing he thought he wanted to hear on the thing, grinding his teeth, too hot tears sinking down the bridge of his nose, his fingers shakily poised over the last button to have it run.

 

                He steeled himself, finally pressing it, the tension in his shoulders ebbing away as he let the breath out. There were a few beeps, a new light showing up in front of him, set on the counter’s top. Just as with the nightmares, he knew what was coming.

 

                ‘… _Hey, Shepard_.’

 

                That same deep voice, rasping in all the same places, breaking every single floodgate Shepard had inside him. Slowly, he lifted his head, bleary eyes locking onto the small hologram that looked directly at him, the liquid heat continuing to drip down, silently, lingering on his jaw before dropping away and seeping into his shirt.

 

                A soft laugh, awkward, a projected hand rubbing the back of a projected neck.

 

                ‘ _This, uh… This is a little weird; I haven’t used one of these before_.’ A pause. ‘ _Look, I’ll… cut to the chase, I mean; I know you don’t really like all the romanticised shit, anyway_.’

 

                Shepard’s lips were parted with his momentarily calmed inhales and exhales, fixated.

 

                ‘ _If you get this, it means that… It means that I didn’t make it. I fixed this thing to send to you if it ever happened, and, well… I guess it did_.’ The projection tipped its head, ‘ _There’s… a lot of things I want to say to you, but I should keep this short, so it won’t clunk up your inbox. No doubt you’re gonna’ get a ton of messages after this is done_.’ Another strained laugh, sounding like static, and it wasn’t because of the technology. ‘ _Okay… Shepard. I know you, even if you don’t think so. I know what you’re going to be like, and I don’t want you to be. I--…Mhf_ ,’ He’d been trying to find the words, shifting the weight between his feet, the action showing up in the hologram. ‘ _If I had to die, I’m glad it was while I was helping you, alright? I-I_ …’

 

                “You lied.”

 

                ‘ _Okay_ ,’ He was gathering himself, hands smoothing over the thighs of his fatigues, a stress response. ‘ _I… Shepard, I love you. More than anything. Know that_.’ There was a tremor in his voice, ‘ _Just… You know? I don’t know. Just… Be happy, please. I want you to be happy, with or without me. You can do it. I love you_.’

 

                The hologram cut short, freezing as it was, Kaidan’s form just looking up at him, the faintest of smiles on his lips.

 

                “You lied.” Shepard repeated, his voice grave. He was talking to a projection, incriminating a projection, as futile as it was. “You said you were—“ His voice broke, coming out in a strangled cough. He didn’t even try to keep himself calm, then, sobs wracking through his chest again as he shoved himself back from the counter, the chair falling behind him. “You said you were gonna’ fight! That… That… You were gonna’ be here with me when this was over!”

 

                His teeth were bore, hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms almost hard enough to break the skin.

 

                “How--… _Why_ am I here and you’re not!? It’s not--…” His lungs demanded oxygen, stuttering his sentences. “… It’s not supposed to be like this, Kaidan!” His knees began buckling beneath him, but he persevered, if only so he could yell at the projection directly, expecting it to answer him back. “Fucking--… How could you do this to me!?”

 

                Shepard turned, face in his palms again, aimlessly pacing around in circles. “I-I… _I can’t do this_ …” He dropped his arms again, one hand gripping tightly over the place in his forearm where the chip was buried just beneath the skin. Staring at the static hologram, an ill-fated idea came to his head, seeming all too good in his swimming, delirious mind.

 

                He staggered over back to the bench, to the sink, his nails digging gradually harder into his skin, blood being pressured out, leaving it white. Maybe, just _maybe_ , he could get over this, through drastic or not measurements. Shepard leant over, his entire form shaking roughly, panting hard, a jolt of pain surging up his arm as his nails broke the skin, dark red oozing out from the fault. His jaw set, shoulders heaving as he dug further in, tearing into the muscle in which the Omnitool chip was embedded.

 

                The fingers of his wielded hand clenched and flexed into stiff claws against the pain, blood dripping off his arm and into the sink, groaning through his teeth as the skin parted to the shallow muscle. Frantically, he gave the projection a side glance, watching it flicker as his nails scathed the small chip. He stopped for a tense moment, ducking over and pressing his forehead to his forearm, grunting, the sound breaking into another sob.

 

                “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…!”

 

                The tips of his fingers closed around the edge of the chip, Shepard taking a sharp breath before finally yanking it out, the tech sizzling ominously, the projection distorting and disappearing.

 

                He was quiet, still, nothing reined in, but rather slowly being processed as he realized what he’d done, forcing his fingers apart and dropping the chip into the sink, bloodied and landing in the small pool of deep red.

 

                Only then did Shepard actually let himself cry, wholly, entirely, unbridled tears coming from his eyes and mixing with the blood, jaws parted, arm stinging as well as the rest of his body. He let his legs finally give out, sliding down the side of the counter to the kitchen floor, his utterly _pained_ sounds echoing through the apartment that was just about as empty as he was, now.

 

                Never again would he see that smile in motion, never again would he hear Kaidan’s voice.

 

_He didn’t sleep well, anymore._


End file.
